


The King is Dead

by Fericita



Series: All Is Found [6]
Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:02:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fericita/pseuds/Fericita
Summary: “I should have been there,” he said, whispering like it was a grievous fault he had committed and not happenstance that made him wake up ill and unable to join the rest of the delegation in their mission.What Elias was up to while Agnarr was stuck in the mist. Thank you The Spaztic Fantastic for coming up with the bath scene idea and beta-ing this.  Always such a joy to brainstorm and obsess over these OCs with you!
Relationships: Agnarr & Iduna (Disney), Agnarr/Iduna (Disney), Elias Calder & Thea Jorgen
Series: All Is Found [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624150
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	The King is Dead

It was supposed to be the first trip in his official role as Arendelle’s Trade Minister. But when Elias woke up that September morning, the roses on the bedroom wall papers were pulsing and his sheet was wet and pinning him to the bed. Thea put a cool hand against his forehead and then pressed her lips there as well before gently suggesting that they send the footman to the castle with a note of apology and explanation. Agnarr had predictably sent back a kind note, with only a hint of ridicule. “I’ll say prayers for your sorry state and hope that Thea can provide the comfort and attention you sorely need.”

With more warning, Captain Calder might have gone with the delegation to the Northuldra forest in his place, but Elias’s father and mother were sailing to Trinidad on a long-awaited trip. After holding the post of Trade Minister for years and traveling strictly for negotiations and explorations, Captain Calder had thrilled his wife with the suggestion that they visit the home of her youth. When they left, Mrs. Calder kissed her son goodbye with the whispered suggestion that he and his wife get to work on a grandchild. 

Captain Calder had clapped his hand on his son’s shoulder and smiled. “Be sure to keep the King’s worst impulses in check. We do better when we expand our influence through trade, not military might. He would do well to remember that. Be well, Trade Minister.”

Elias had been groomed for the role from a young age, first tagging along to council meetings in order to play with Prince Agnarr afterwards. They explored the castle grounds and hidden passageways and fenced with wooden swords while their fathers did the work of ruling. In their teen years, they feigned attention before riding and fighting with sabres after meetings that went on too long in their estimation. Later still, they listened as Lady Wollen steered decisions towards policies more progressive than King Runeard would have been likely to consider had it not been for her masterful framing of issues and opportunities. Elias learned how important trade was to their port kingdom and how vital the robust exchange of goods was to the continued health of Arendelle. He was eager to explore the territory north of their kingdom, a place scouts and previous delegates called magical and singularly beautiful. 

It was supposed to be his first trip, but here he was, in bed at noon, his head pounding and the wall papers imported from Paris threatening him with thorns that were growing and moving as he watched. 

Which is why he didn’t think it was real at first. It seemed more like a dream when a soldier galloped into town, shouting that the king was dead. That the king had attacked the Northuldra and tried to lead his troops in a takeover, though most had been too confused about this change of mission and had stood, mystified as living fire and punishing water and howling wind and moving earth attacked them. The rider shouted about a mist as solid as a castle wall and everyone but him being trapped inside. His voice echoed off of the cobbled streets as the usual bustling sounds of a port town stopped at his raving. Elias put his hands over his eyes and rubbed them vigorously, wishing for calmer sleep. But then Thea opened the door, a look of panic and concern pulling him out of his stupor.

“He’s missing, Elias. Prince Agnarr is missing.”

***

At his wedding to Thea, Agnarr had stood beside him, smiling and murmuring an occasional joke. Thea had looked so beautiful in her dress, flowers adorning her hair and a matching bouquet clutched in her hands, that even Agnarr had noticed. “Perhaps I should take your advice and stop reading books long enough to study the women of our kingdom.” 

“Good luck, my friend,” Elias had said. “But I don’t think you’ll find any as worthy of study as my bride.”

Agnarr had toasted the couple and danced with Thea and when Elias had her in his arms again she rested her head on his shoulder as they danced and sighed happily. It had been the best day of his life. 

And today was the worst.

Agnarr had been oblivious to women, but that wasn’t all he was oblivious to. Of his father’s darker aspects he remained blissfully unaware. He was more earnest and compassionate than his father and Elias had thought it would make him a good ruler, if King Runeard didn’t live forever just to spite them all. Now it seemed King Runeard had spited them all with hostile plans which, instead of expanding his reach, had wiped out his bloodline entirely.

***

Thea dipped the sponge into the steaming bath and then lifted it out of the water, bringing it up to Elias’s shoulders and gently wiping the contours of his back. He sighed and then leaned against the copper wash tub as she brought the sponge around to his chest. Water and suds ran down his chest and back into the tub as Thea drew the sponge across his front. He grabbed her wrist, clinging like a child afraid of the water or a man about to drown. 

“I should have been there,” he said, whispering like it was a grievous fault he had committed and not happenstance that made him wake up ill and unable to join the rest of the delegation in their mission.

“Thank God you weren’t,” Thea said. She rested her forehead against his shoulder and breathed in time with him. The steam from the bath made her feel like her whole face was crying - the warmth and wetness drawing out tears that might have remained unshed had Elias not been shaking beneath her ministrations. 

“I should go now, see what this mist is, if there’s a way in. Something must have been overlooked.”

She moved her head away from his shoulder and her hand from his grasp and reached for his water-slick hair, smoothing it away from his face. The thought of him being unreachable to her, caught on the other side of a mist had been terrifying. She hadn’t stopped touching him since the soldier’s frantic retelling of the horrible events that had led to the mist coming down. 

They’d only been married a few months. She wanted a lifetime to learn the way water ran down the lines of his back during a bath, how his eyes found hers during their moments of deepest pleasure, how he pulled her to him when they woke in the morning and she could hear the mourning doves coo from the circle of his arms. “You will go. But not until you can sit upright without falling over. Your fever still comes at night.”

“He’s the king now. If he’s alive.” He sank lower in the water, like the despair of the sentence was pulling him down. “If he survived.”

Thea wrung out the sponge near his legs and he reached towards her to run his fingers along the back of her hand before dropping his hands heavily into the water, exhausted.

Thea got him into the bed with the help of the footman and laid her head on his chest all night, occasionally wiping at his forehead with a cool cloth but grateful each time his shivering woke her up. He was here. He was alive. 

***

By the time Elias had recovered enough to ride to the wall of mist, an outpost of soldiers had erected small checkpoints around the perimeter and were beginning the construction of shelters. He touched the mist and felt the firmness of it. 

When he returned, defeated and despairing over the fate of the soldiers and of Agnarr, Thea comforted him with reassurances and words of hope. She undressed him like he was still sick even though the fever had left him, slowly unbuttoning and sliding her hands into his shirt to push it down from his shoulders, taking off his boots and then his trousers, pressing into him with what seemed like an urgency wrought from fear and relief. 

A kingdom without king or prince was an uncertain thing, but this was certain. The pure bliss of his head tucked against her neck and his fingers finding skin in the space between pantalettes and skirts, of the soft warmth of her legs wrapped around his middle while they cleaved to one another. He could endure the horrifying council meetings with too many empty chairs to come home to her arms and their bed, her kisses on the spot behind his ear.

***

When his parents returned to Arendelle, Elias and Thea had two things to tell them - the sad news about the disastrous northern trip and one of a more personal nature. The council had a government that ran smoothly without a king, though they all hoped one would emerge from the mist. Captain Calder congratulated Elias on the steadiness of such a transition and then consoled him on the loss of his friend.

“You two have known each other since your baptism; two squalling babies filling the church with the sound of your own voices. Like you already had something to talk about.”

Thea put her hands around her middle, where Mrs. Calder had been glancing.

“We’ll have another baptism soon, we hope. This winter.” 

Elias smiled and put his arm around Thea’s shoulders. “See, Mother? We listened to your advice.”

***

The council had skipped the Yule Bell ceremony that would have fallen just months after the events to the north. Instead, the citizens of Arendelle filled the chapel pews and lined up against the aisles and walls to pray for the safe return of the missing soldiers and Prince Agnarr. 

The following year, the members of the council lined up in the castle courtyard with their families and rang the bell after some prayers for the missing prince. Elias carried baby Sasha, wrapped tightly against the wind coming off of the fjord. His other arm was around Thea who fussed over the baby’s hat, the baby’s booties, the baby’s blanket. Elias thought of all the years he had seen Agnarr and his father ring the bell, and hoped he would see Agnarr do it once more.

***

Elias thought about delaying the baptism. He longed for Agnarr to be there, to stand as godfather. And he hoped that somehow, Agnarr had found a way to survive. 

As the bishop lifted his hand from the font and the water on Sasha’s head woke her and caused her to cry, he felt tears spring to his own eyes. Thea reached for his hand and squeezed tightly and he squeezed back, grateful at least that though his friend was missing, his family was growing.

***

The whole town woke to the shouts, carrying throughout the town as they echoed off the snowdrifts.

“Halima! Halima!”

Thea looked out their bedroom window while nursing Sasha. “Elias!” She turned, her mouth moving but not making words. He ran to the window and saw Captain Mattias, astride a reindeer as he rode down the center of the empty street. He swung his foot around and dismounted, not bothering to secure the reindeer, and pounded on the door to Hudson’s. Elias watched as the door swung open and Halima put her hand to her mouth before falling to her knees. Mattias lifted her up and held her tightly as other soldiers began to appear on foot and on reindeer, cresting the ridge above the town proper. Most were wearing Northuldra clothes, but Elias could spot the faces of men and women he knew to be missing - both of the Rundes, Lord Hannasel’s wife, Lady Wollen’s nephew. 

But no Agnarr.

Elias looked to Thea and she nodded, encouragement and permission, before he ran down the stairs and out into the snowy streets. He hadn’t even stopped to put on his overcoat and it would have been a welcome buffer against the frozen air that assaulted him as he ran up the street to where Mattias stood in the doorway to Hudson’s with Halima clinging to him tightly.

Mattias saw him coming and shouted to Elias over the wind and stomping of reindeer hooves and the footfalls of so many Arendellians coming home. “He lives! Agnarr is alive!”

***

Elias had believed Mattias, both that Agnarr was alive and that Agnarr had abdicated. But seeing his friend at the border where the stones still stood sentinel over a vanished mist was a relief that those assurances and words couldn't come close to matching.

They hugged tightly and Elias began to apologize. “I’m so sorry, I should have been there. And now you aren’t coming home? Tell me it’s your choice, tell me if it’s not. I’m with you either way.”

Agnarr smiled and looked into his friend’s eyes. “It’s my choice. I’m a husband now, and a father. And our baby - she wouldn’t be safe in Arendelle. The Northuldra will probably never fully trust someone of my father’s bloodline, not to rule anyway. This is best for peace. For me and for our family.”

***

Sasha and Elsa were seven by the time Elias and Thea introduced their families to one another. Agnarr had been cautious about the Arendellians learning of Elsa’s ice magic but after several years of trust growing between the two nations, and the steady leadership of King Mattias, a comfortable peace was established. Elias saw the perfectly formed snow flower Elsa made and then gave to Thea in welcome and understood. Such talents would be hidden in Arendelle. Surrounded by a magical forest, they could be celebrated. They could be safe.

Letters and gifts could not take the place of the two families sleeping in the same kota and taking meals together. Thea painted the gorgeous landscapes and the children explored the surrounding wood. Iduna was a generous hostess and thanked Elias for the storybooks and toy ships he had sent for the girls, and offered to watch Sasha while Thea and Elias had a few nights in a nearby cave. 

“I know how hard it is to find time alone with a little one,” she had said with a smile while Thea blushed.

Thea had vomited on the ride home from their summer in the forest, the leavings of the horses and the motion of the ride upsetting her. When he helped her clean her face she had whispered “I think I’m with child.” He had used his handkerchief, wishing Elsa could put some soothing ice on it, to wipe at her forehead and chin. 

“What a blessing that would be!”

Sasha saw herself to bed and Elias carried his wife upstairs, undressing her while the servants readied a bath. She sat on the bed, pale and breathing deeply as he reached under her skirts to untie her stockings. He ran his hands along her thighs and then down to her ankles, taking the stockings off and then beginning to work on the buttons at her back. 

Later, when she sank into the waters, he clumsily pulled her hair up and twisted it so it wouldn’t get wet. She sighed as his hands worked in her hair and then closed her eyes when he reached under the water to wash her legs. He used the sponge to gently wash her tender breasts and aching back and she opened her eyes with such a look of desire that he pulled her out of the tub and carried her to their bed. And the pleasure they found was different than that found during despair, but it was a pleasure Elias hoped would be one they could find over and over as their family grew and the kingdom changed around them.


End file.
